Christian Youth Speaker Battles Montana School Board
by Jim Brown
November 14, 2003
(AgapePress) - A Montana school board is being accused of violating the First Amendment rights of a Christian youth speaker who was prohibited from addressing a middle school in the state.Last fall, school board members denied motivational speaker Jaroy Carpenter permission to speak to students at Dillon Middle School. Carpenter, who was initially approved by the board, often gives secular speeches in public schools as well as religious presentations at Christian youth rallies. Carpenter had been asked to help Dillon's students who were coping with a string of teen suicides and automobile deaths.
But board members later retracted their permission, telling him that his affiliation with a Christian group called the "Dawson McAllister Association" precluded him from speaking to the students.
Attorney Casey Mattox with The Rutherford Institute says the school board violated the youth speaker's First Amendment rights. "Basically they erred so much on the side of avoiding a lawsuit from the ACLU that they just trampled over someone's religious freedom," Mattox explains. "We're trying to make the point that they have to weigh these things fairly and not just go with the default decision to discriminate against a religious person."
The attorney says his client was censored because he is a well-known Christian and because of his association with a Christian ministry. "I think it basically threatens the right of Christians to be able to speak in schools, even to teach in schools, if their faith is well known," he says.
Mattox has filed a motion for summary judgment, asking the court to rule that the school violated Carpenter's constitutional rights.
